Network operators and end-users benefit from operating wireless equipment (user equipment (UE), customer premises equipment (CPE), etc.) with current or last-know version software or firmware applications. Over-the-air (OTA) software updates, also referred to “fix” OTA (FOTA) updates, are relatively large and difficult or costly to deliver to wireless equipment (UE, CPE, etc.) over a macrocellular wireless data network. In FOTA updates, all or a substantive portion of data traffic including large FOTA files typically require costly transport between a base station and a network platform of a content provider. Such resources can be shared by a mixture of end-users consuming real-time and background applications in related user devices. Moreover, substantive background FOTA traffic tends to degrade the experience of real-time applications that share the same resources. Furthermore, macrocellular network coverage and related loading conditions also can reduce the success rate of delivery of large FOTA files to the wireless equipment. Because of at least the foregoing characteristics of FOTA software updates, such updates of wireless equipment are usually only implemented as required, e.g., when a subscriber that operates the wireless equipment calls customer service.
Additionally, certain conventional systems and related solutions that do not rely on OTA deployment of software (SW) application(s) or related component(s) in order to effect an SW update of a UE generally include considerable manual intervention and typically require tethering the UE to a host computer (e.g., a personal computer (PC)) with a broadband connection. Therefore, subscribers that exploit such conventional systems to update mobile devices are primarily limited to updates opportunities to the extent that they tether their mobile device to such host computer. Perhaps more importantly, subscriber without access to such host computer or opportunities to tether thereto on a regular basis are likely to consume wireless service through a UE that operates in underperforming conditions.